The Secret World Of Arrietty + A Whine
I love you, Hayao Miyazaki. Just saw this movie, on opening night yesterday. I'm so glad Miyazaki's movies can start out in wide release (Princess Mononoke was his first movie to make the big screen in America, but it was limited release). It's based on the children's classic, The Borrowers, and Miyazaki does an excellent job of capturing the sense of wonder and strength of children. It's a relatively narrow slice of life and environment compared to the usual Studio Ghibli fare, but it works because the main heroine is only about two inches tall. The movie does a perfect job of showing what the life and ethos and culture of "little people" would be like. My only complaint was that it's dubbed; I would like to see it in Japanese (I liked most of the English voice actors, though, with the exception of the young human male. Arrietty and the father and housekeeper were particularly good).
In short, magical and it made me feel alive, like so many Miyazaki movies.
In the ugly real world... this is what a theocracy looks like. Anytime a group of people is called forth to speak about the fate of a people who is entirely (or almost entirely) EXCLUDED from the discussion, bad shit is going down. Men are the experts on women's reproductive rights and health, apparently. Religious authority male figures > real women.
The Republican rationale for excusing the young female college student from giving her testimony was that she was not a religious "authority," but I think it's sad that they themselves did not produce a single female religious figure.
Also, they keep screaming that religion is being infringed upon -- but it's not. Places of worship are exempt; but religious-affiliated and TAXPAYER-funded organizations like colleges and hospitals are not. If you take money from the government, I believe you can't discriminate based on your "own conscience" and discriminate against certain parts of the public -- who are GIVING your their tax money.
Now if you're really dead-set on discriminating, stay within the religious organization itself, and you can refuse to serve GLBT, give women the medicine they need, and fire sick people and the disabled. What would Jesus do? Apparently fire a women who had been sick. But the Supreme Court, the highest court in America, upheld that religious "freedom" to act like a giant jerk.
I think the Republicans* are unwittingly politically suicidal (so caught up in their self-righteousness and rhetoric), and they couldn't have given the Democrats a better early November gift at the polls. Religious and conservative women also cherish their right to choose for themselves (especially something as simple as birth control), and women don't like being told to shut up by men.
*I was raised Republican, very Christian evangelical, and used to vote conservative. So yes, this is the bitterness of an ex speaking.
Lest we forget, women haven't even had the right to vote in America for 100 years yet (19th Amendment was passed in 1920). We (everyone, everywhere) must remember that we must all do our part to protect the intrinsic rights of every human being.
I end with a quote from Sojourner Truth, who was a totally badass self-liberated slave: Man is so selfish that he has got women’s rights and his own too, and yet he won’t give women their rights. He keeps them all to himself.
In short, magical and it made me feel alive, like so many Miyazaki movies.
In the ugly real world... this is what a theocracy looks like. Anytime a group of people is called forth to speak about the fate of a people who is entirely (or almost entirely) EXCLUDED from the discussion, bad shit is going down. Men are the experts on women's reproductive rights and health, apparently. Religious authority male figures > real women.
The Republican rationale for excusing the young female college student from giving her testimony was that she was not a religious "authority," but I think it's sad that they themselves did not produce a single female religious figure.
Also, they keep screaming that religion is being infringed upon -- but it's not. Places of worship are exempt; but religious-affiliated and TAXPAYER-funded organizations like colleges and hospitals are not. If you take money from the government, I believe you can't discriminate based on your "own conscience" and discriminate against certain parts of the public -- who are GIVING your their tax money.
Now if you're really dead-set on discriminating, stay within the religious organization itself, and you can refuse to serve GLBT, give women the medicine they need, and fire sick people and the disabled. What would Jesus do? Apparently fire a women who had been sick. But the Supreme Court, the highest court in America, upheld that religious "freedom" to act like a giant jerk.
I think the Republicans* are unwittingly politically suicidal (so caught up in their self-righteousness and rhetoric), and they couldn't have given the Democrats a better early November gift at the polls. Religious and conservative women also cherish their right to choose for themselves (especially something as simple as birth control), and women don't like being told to shut up by men.
*I was raised Republican, very Christian evangelical, and used to vote conservative. So yes, this is the bitterness of an ex speaking.
Lest we forget, women haven't even had the right to vote in America for 100 years yet (19th Amendment was passed in 1920). We (everyone, everywhere) must remember that we must all do our part to protect the intrinsic rights of every human being.
I end with a quote from Sojourner Truth, who was a totally badass self-liberated slave: Man is so selfish that he has got women’s rights and his own too, and yet he won’t give women their rights. He keeps them all to himself.